Chapter 3 – THE TICKET BOUGHT THE DAY I WAS BORN
I stared at the envelope.
Hannah Moretti.
My hands shook violently as I tore it open.
I expected a birth certificate.
I expected some horrible proof that my whole life was a lie, that Dorothy Collins wasn’t my real mother.
But there was no birth certificate.
There was only a handwritten letter on my mother’s familiar floral stationery, and an old, faded train ticket.
The ticket was dated twenty-six years ago.
The exact day I was born.
A one-way trip from New York to a small town in Ohio.
Purchased by Teresa Moretti.
I unfolded the letter.
My dearest Hannah, my mother’s handwriting read. If you are reading this, it means my time has run out, and the Bellini family finally found me.
I stopped breathing.
Vanessa’s family.
Thirty years ago, I didn’t work in a cafeteria. I was the head housekeeper for the Moretti family.
I loved them. Especially young Luca. I helped raise him.
But one night, I saw something I was never meant to see.
I saw Vanessa’s father steal that gold watch from Luca’s father.
And then, I saw him pull the trigger.
I gasped, dropping the letter.
“Hannah, what is it?” Caroline asked, terrified.
I couldn’t speak.
My sweet, gentle mother who smelled of cinnamon rolls and peppermint.
She had been a witness to a mafia murder.
She had spent her entire life hiding in poverty to keep us safe.
Suddenly, the doors to the parlor swung open.
Luca Moretti walked in.
He had changed out of his tuxedo into a dark overcoat, rain glistening on his broad shoulders.
He took off his hat out of respect, his eyes searching the room until he found me.
“Hannah,” he said softly. “Are you alright?”
I didn’t answer.
I just walked toward him, holding out the heavy gold pocket watch.
Luca’s breath hitched.
He stared at the watch as if he had seen a ghost.
His hand trembled as he reached out and touched the engraved lions.
“Where did you get this?” he whispered.
“It was hidden in my mother’s coat,” I said, crying. “Luca, she saw it happen. She saw Vanessa’s father kill your dad.”
Luca’s jaw clenched so hard a muscle ticked in his cheek.
He looked from the watch to my tear-stained face.
“She ran away,” I sobbed. “To protect me.”
“She didn’t run, Hannah,” a fragile voice said from the doorway.
We all turned.
Teresa Moretti stood in the entrance, supported by Daniel.
She looked at my mother’s casket and began to weep.
“She didn’t run,” Teresa repeated, walking slowly toward us. “I sent her away. I bought her that train ticket the day you were born.”
I stared at the older woman.
“Why?” I begged.
Teresa reached into her purse and pulled out a small, tarnished brass key.
“Because Dorothy didn’t just take the watch as proof,” Teresa whispered. “She took the ledger. The Bellini family’s entire financial history. And she hid it.”
Teresa placed the brass key in my hand.
“Your mother left this key with me a decade ago. She said if anything ever happened to her, I was to give it to you.”
I looked at the key.
“What does it open?”
“A wooden box,” Teresa said. “Hidden in the floorboards of your childhood bedroom.”
My heart hammered against my ribs.
Caroline and I exchanged a panicked look.
“We have to go,” I said, grabbing my coat.
Daniel drove us to the rundown apartment building where we grew up.
We sprinted up the three flights of stairs.
But when we reached apartment 3B, I froze.
The heavy wooden door was splintered.
It had been kicked in.
And standing in the center of our trashed living room was a man I had never seen before, holding my mother’s favorite winter coat with a knife in his hand.
